


oh, you bright young heavy hearts

by wemighthavebeenqueens



Category: Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: Anatole Kuragin + Andrei Bolkonsky, Angst, Character Study, F/F, Gen, M/M, Poetry, Short, and some degree of hope, cross-posted to Tumblr, posted with art
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 14:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13615614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wemighthavebeenqueens/pseuds/wemighthavebeenqueens
Summary: A collection of short War and Peace inspired ficlets and poems that I've posted to my Tumblr (maybe-queen-of-numenor)





	1. blood in your smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mara_jaded](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mara_jaded/gifts).



> A poem for Helene.

When you are over a man,  
you are more than A God-  
your thighs cradle him more firmly  
than your parents ever held you  
when you were a girl.

 

(and you are still a girl with a tearstained pillow  
and red bedsheets,  
but the soldier under you calls you Woman,  
and besides he is still a boy,  
gold braid under his soft chin  
which is You Know He Knows more  
than you ever will-  
even though tomorrow the French are at the river,  
bloody baptism for a cursed country-  
And You Already Know  
because of the boy who split like a flood  
under you last night.)

 

he says you are an Alabaster Goddess,  
cold and mysterious but,  
white and red like  
Pomegranates, Persephone in the underworld of her own volition-  
except he calls you Aphrodite  
and compares the curve of your chin to caryatids  
and you long since took your own beauty for granted.

 

The worst of them call you slut. You  
Tilt your chin and smile in that handsome way  
And they call you Queen  
Of Petersburg,  
and society fits like a corset that covers your ribs  
and the men who trace the tab marks with  
cold fingers and press their lips to you  
even though you know Tomorrow their lips will split  
and open the dams of their blood  
-rite of passage  
which you learned Long Ago.

 

You know all the words to this opera.  
You know the death that closes it.  
You know of  
Rapture and Hellfire Both  
and you know of the sin  
of beautiful things-  
of red lips and wilted roses and bare thighs.  
and you know of the nymphs and their day in the sun  
and the bloody boys on the battlefield  
and the bloody girls in the bedchamber  
and there is nothing more you want  
than to bite the tender flesh of the world  
and bleed the gilded edges clean.


	2. blue like a fire (I don't deserve you)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it hurts to love your best friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mythologylesbian asked: pierre x whoever, "you love me as if i deserve you" (make me suffer)

“You should go home, mon cher,” Andrei said quietly. In the half-light of the fire and the fading dusk, his coat unbuttoned, the dark circles under his eyes purple, he looked smaller and more fragile than Pierre had ever seen him. Yet there was something desperately sad and angry blazing in his eyes, a restlessness that frightened Pierre.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Pierre told him. Andrei laughed humorlessly, exhaustedly.

“I worry about the people that I love. It’s in my nature, you know,” Andrei replied. His voice had dropped to something so quiet that Pierre struggled to hang onto his words.

“Love?” Pierre replied, unsure. 

Andrei looked at him and gave a tiny smile, his hair hanging in his eyes. Then the pleasant look on his face faded, back to that desperate, sad glow. “I’ve loved you for years, you know that, chérie. It’s in the nature of our friendship. Halves of a whole. I can’t think of losing you.”

Pierre felt something tighten in his chest and he looked away, unable to hold eye contact with Andrei’s feverish, glittering glance. When he looked back, Andrei was looking down too, clenching and unclenching his delicate hands. Pierre struggled to find something to say.

“You love me…” It started out as a question, which Pierre quickly resolved. “You love me as if I deserve you.” 

Andrei looked up, his eyes a little wet but his face steady. “As if I deserve you? I never deserved you. You deserve so much better than me. Really-you should go home.” He stood.

“Wait-” said Pierre, standing as well, and realizing he had nothing good to say. Andrei reached out and squeezed his arm, then sensing this was inadequate, took Pierre by the hands. 

“I wish-” Andrei. who was prepared to die, did not quite know what to say. “I wish you a better life, mon âme.”

He gave Pierre a quick, fleeting kiss with cold lips, then looked him in the eye and released his hands. “Goodbye.”

Pierre blinked as Andrei moved away, and stood there for a long time after Andrei had disappeared.


	3. all that and more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the passion of loving another woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mythologylesbian asked: hélène x natasha, "a woman’s sexuality is a moving target"

“There’s so much you have to learn now that you’re here, lovely,” Helene purred, draping a gauzy shawl over Natasha’s shoulders and smoothing it down.

“Like what?” Natasha responded, meeting Helene’s gaze in the mirror with a questioning look.

“Well.” Helene licked her lips. “For one, you’re going to become more familiar with the nature of men.”

Natasha laughed. “I know men well enough, my friend.”

“But!” Helene exclaimed, her eyes bright. “You haven’t been as much as an object of desire as you’re going to be here. You’ve seen already, the way men look at you. Object is the key word. They want you, dear.”

Natasha gave a nervous giggle. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

Helene sighed and ran her hands across Natasha’s shoulders again. “I understand, love. Men are so utterly tiring, ne c’est pas? They are too straightforward, they always want. I grow tired of men, you know.”

“You do?” Natasha suddenly felt a little unsure and a little excited at the way Helene was lazily playing with Natasha’s curls.

“Don’t you? Sometimes, I’d rather sleep with a woman than any man in the world. Women are so much more enticing, wouldn’t you say?”

Natasha had never quite considered it like that, but she nodded, unable to think of a good thing to say. “Women are pretty,” she finally conceded, then bit her own tongue, astonished at how stupid she sounded.

“Don’t they say women are fickle?” Helene was saying, in a low voice. “Isn’t that what they say, a woman’s sexuality is a moving target? I’d have to agree, ma petite. Wouldn’t you?”

“Um.” responded Natasha, looking in the mirror not at herself but at the stunning Grecian curve of Helene’s face- and her shoulders- and her hips-

“Take you, for example,” Helene murmured. “I’d kiss a pretty girl like you, and more if you would. Just look at your neck-” she traced a finger along the Natasha’s neck- “your shoulders-” her hand ran the length of Natasha’s arm- “the whole picture is just so beautiful.” She gently lifted Natasha’s hand and kissed her palm. 

Natasha’s breath caught in her throat, and in a rush of boldness, she twisted around in the chair to look Helene in the eye and grab her hand. “Do that again.”

Helene looked pleased and surprised, and her usual finely tuned facade slipped to reveal a bubbly, girlish smile that was stunning in Natasha’s eyes. “You want me to kiss you? Pretty girl like you? It’s like what I said-”

“Just kiss me,” Natasha blurted out, taking Helene’s face in her hands and planting a messy kiss on her lips. “Like what you said. All that and more.”


	4. angel with a human heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A poem for Nikolai Rostov.

You always dreamed of being  
A soldier-angel astride  
A golden horse-  
but you are no more   
than someone’s loved son  
riding bareback upon a shaggy pony  
in the golden-summer yard,  
your sister laughing.

 

(later, you learn  
your golden horse only bleeds red  
and your angel-skin only bruises purple.)

 

you’re a boy, breathless and laughing;  
your eyelashes frozen to your cheeks,  
and all you know is sleigh bells and  
the warmth of your brother  
asleep on your shoulder.

 

you are a boy on a battlefield,   
fire in your eyes and iron  
on your tongue and in the air  
and the ground is cold but  
your heart is warm and  
All You Know

 

is how easy it is  
to fall in love  
with the whole world, even,  
if you’re brave enough.

 

you are  
burnt gold and ivory and  
when you smile you  
are painted like a saint  
with your crabapple cheeks  
and silken lips and you  
are just a boy-

 

dirt under your fingernails,  
horsehair on your collar,  
gold around your waist-  
the sparks of the fire,  
the spray of the snow,  
the song of your own voice

 

painting something that looks  
a little like you  
in a certain light.


	5. and in the time we have left;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a canon-divergent short fic in which the dying Andrei and Anatole are reunited on the retreat to Moscow; questions of death and forgiveness ensue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted with accompanying art!

the army is in retreat.

the wounded are unceremoniously piled into carts or set upon to walk, if they can, joining the human river on its way to Moscow.

there is not enough, there is never enough- never enough food, or blankets, or room to lay down.

one dying adjutant, a prince, gets a calèche to himself until someone realizes that another adjutant, another young prince barely clinging to life, hasn’t been accounted for. and they are put together, laid unconscious side by side under the same blanket.

strange, that Andrei and Anatole should be reunited like this, at the end.

in many senses, it is practical- Anatole shivers so hard it saps him of any energy to move, while Andrei’s body burns, and burns, and burns with fever.

the calèche moves, and then stops, and moves, and the earth turns.

none of this registers to either man.

Andrei wakes. It may be night, or day. he can’t tell the difference, but the calèche is dark and smells of death. when he turns his head, he sees Anatole’s head pressed into his shoulder. he recognizes the other man right away, somehow. it does not strike him as strange- it strikes him as fate.

Anatole has not yet stopped shivering. Andrei tries to move, to shift his body, but this results only in a burning flash of pain radiating out from his core, causing him to curl in on himself. the movement wakes Anatole, who raises his eyes to Andrei’s face.

“oh god,” he manages to gasp. he too, recognizes Andrei right away. he chokes on a breath. as he shivers, he finds it nearly impossible to draw air. “oh god, forgive me,” he rasps, raising a shaking hand to Andrei’s cheek.

Andrei brushes his hand away and tries to speak. his throat is full of blood, again, he thinks, and his voice rattles as he makes some quieting sound and presses his lips to Anatole’s forehead. it seems like the right thing to do, and as he burns he is desperate to feel something cold against his cracked lips- and Anatole is like ice, like a corpse. Andrei takes Anatole’s hand and presses it to his own forehead, feeling some relief, and Anatole, shivering, freezing, presses himself closer to Andrei, the only source of warmth he can find.

Anatole is accustomed to intimacy, to feeling another’s body against his. Andrei is not. neither of them remember this now. Andrei puts his arms around Anatole. they are both waiting for death.

it is a moment before Andrei realizes that Anatole is sobbing again, indistinguishable from the way he is already shaking. he presses his fingers into Anatole’s hair and wills him to quiet. “i forgive you,” he tries to whisper, but he is sure that it is unintelligible.

he thinks of the awakening he has had. he thinks of how wonderful it is to love. there is nothing that matters anymore that he cannot forgive Anatole for, or perhaps he has forgotten, but the past seems so insignificant compared to this broken human body beside his. we are only cannon fodder. we love while we can, he thinks. besides, he cannot move; besides, Anatole’s body is cool.

“Bolkonsky,” Anatole manages, even nearing death unable to call Andrei anything else. “i will be dead by morning.” he is sure of it.

“and so will i,” Andrei whispers, another wave of heat pressing its way through his body. he cannot remember the last time he had water to drink.

“we will never receive our rites,” Anatole says, almost desperately. he has never been a religious man, and Andrei knows this, but perhaps death brings us all closer.

“here,” Andrei tells him, reaching down his shirt and removing the icon Marya gave him so long ago. his last tenuous thread. he kisses the icon- he has never believed, either, but it seems like the right thing.

Anatole looks into Andrei’s eyes without moving his head, his eyes shining and questioning. Andrei brings the icon to Anatole’s lips, thinking again that this is the right way.

Anatole’s shivering has quieted a little, and Andrei has cooled a bit. they fall asleep, curled together in a horrible symmetry.

their fever dreams press their broken bodies closer together, as they dream of skies in blue and red and gold and blood on snow. they will not remember these dreams when they wake up.

they both expect to never wake up.


End file.
